


Coffins 101

by aykayem



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2012-08-17
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:46:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aykayem/pseuds/aykayem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In what should have just been a cursory sort of check, Harry ends up falling for Draco. With Draco. Quite literally, actually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffins 101

**Author's Note:**

  * For [witblogi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/witblogi/gifts).



> In a brief moment of genius, my b and I were discussing shipping things places. This is apparently what came of that conversation.

Draco had been certain, from the moment he woke up that morning, that that day was going to go rather less well than he had initially planned. Of course, he never planned for his days to go poorly; who would ever wish that upon themselves? No, it always just seemed to happen. He wondered if he hadn't been, perhaps, cursed at some point in his life, destined to never have more than a month or two without some incident fucking it all up for him. Admittedly, he had been doing fairly well of late. No major problems that he could speak of.

He had acquired Borgin and Burkes recently, after the Ministry had all but cleared them out for having 'unsavoury business practices' or some such. The article was pinned up in the back room, just for Draco to smirk down upon when he was feeling so smug; the photo was extremely unflattering, flashes making Mr Borgin look much older than he was and perpetually startled as he was carted off to Azkaban. It was really just a matter of time, Draco figured.

So now he was left with a shop, torn down to the barest of bones, and filled only with those artefacts deemed safe by the Ministry. He was slowly stocking back up with things that fascinated him more than anything, taking some of the things that no one had looked at in decades from the Manor. It wasn't like it didn't need a little decluttering every now and then anyway.

All that taken into consideration, Draco probably should have seen the little visit coming.

A book was spread out open on the clean glass counter near the middle of the shop, fine Wizarding antiques scattered idly around in a neat sort of pattern that easily lent itself to browsing, and Draco sat behind it, eyes locked onto the pages. It was ancient, leather-bound and well-cared for. The sort of book that was a dime a dozen in the Malfoy library, but still fascinating, not that he was paying it much attention. He was fairly sure he'd read the same paragraph four times over by now, concentrating more on the footfalls traipsing around his shop like a bull in a china shop.

"Potter, do me a favour, and _don't_ break my things," he stated plainly after a moment, finally tearing his eyes from the book. Folding long fingers over it, Draco leaned forward against the counter, fixing a solid stare on his only customer. 'Customer', in this case, used very loosely.

Harry Potter was dressed up in a manner Draco decided really didn't suit him at all: full Auror regalia, complete with the same stupid glasses he'd always worn. He was also looking particularly interested in a handful of objects hidden deep in the back of an open armoire, casting his wand and some murmured spell over the lot of them.

"Just a routine check, Malfoy," he replied, words muffled slightly from the way the armoire seemed to eat up all sound.

"You make it sound like the place is filled with Dark artefacts."

"Sadly," Harry stated, pulling his head out of the armoire, his hair still sticking up in every which direction. Draco had a horrifying urge to fix it for him that he quickly suppressed, putting off as an unfortunate bout of obsessive compulsive disorder directing him to fix everything that was out of place in his store. Which was probably not that far from the truth. His fingers twitched, and he clasped them tighter together, his mouth pursing into an unhappy, downward curve as Harry kept talking. "The Ministry doesn't really believe you."

"Oh, of course not. Why ever would they believe me?"

"It might have something to do with the Da-"

Harry, turning around to peer into another cupboard, was silenced by the dark look Draco was shooting him. It was easy to catch, even from the corner of his eye, and he pursed his mouth apologetically, "Sorry."

"Of course you are, Potter. That's why you're here, searching me like I'm some petty criminal," the blond drawled, words still dripping with their usual venom. Harry paused, turning to face Draco with his hands on his hips, wearing a frown like he wore his glasses - with a strange sense of ease that came too naturally; green eyes were bright as he gave the other man a slow once-over, trying to figure out where the mask ended and the real Draco began. Like it was possible from just one little look.

He could always hope, really.

"I'm here because they told me to be here. I told you that," he said slowly, lowering his hands as he turned his gaze to a necklace, grazing his fingertips over it as he crossed the room. He had a feeling there would be nothing found there, no matter how hard he searched, no matter how many rocks he turned over. Nothing was going to jump up and scream out that Draco Malfoy was a practicing Death Eater, eager to rid the world of Muggles and the like.

Draco, meanwhile, had taken to staring right back at Harry, mouth curved with a sceptical sneer, "Fine. Search away. Make sure you write down in your little report that this business of mine is absolutely spotless. I've had quite enough of their snooping." He was bristling, Harry noticed idly, now trained to notice the little things in the ways people moved. It helped that he'd already known the blond for so long, had already spent enough years watching him posture and preen to see when he was nervous and trying to hide it. But he was most certainly bristling like a cat with its fur all on end, and about as happy as one, too.

"I'm almost done."

"I'll bet you are." Another snappish reply. He was on the defensive, that much was obvious; Harry didn't think he could really blame him either. He'd cancelled his subscription to the _Daily Prophet_ ages ago, sick to death with the rubbish they published about people. It was worse than a tabloid, he'd decided, starting up an unspoken boycott of the paper.

Still, years later, they were still at it, latching onto the smallest little things. Harry just thought they must have been fairly desperate.

He prodded at a handful more things, waving his wand over the odd object to double check that his senses weren't deceiving him, to make sure the artefacts Draco had collected over the years were simply beautiful, rather than dangerous. He paused in front of a particularly large coffin, frowning at it briefly before casting a glance over to the blond.

"What's this?"

"That, Potter, is a coffin," Draco drawled plainly, looking amused for the first time as he circled around the counter to join Harry beside the thing. It was massive, to say the least, made of hand carved oak and dating back at least a century, if not longer. Harry wouldn't have been surprised, at least. Sadly, he found that he was ignoring all the cleverly memorised facts Draco was reciting about the thing, proving himself quite the archivist even if salesman would never be one of his top qualities. Eventually, he tuned in a little bit more to catch the tail end, "…last occupant had fancied himself a bit of an experimenter and ended up burying himself alive in the bloody thing."

He looked nothing short of horrified.

"You're kidding, Malfoy," Harry stated, gaping a little. It didn't particularly suit him, nor the look he was trying to achieve by wearing full Auror regalia around when he could have done with a badge. "How'd you get it?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Draco replied wickedly, and Harry glanced between the coffin and the blond, trying to sort out which was the more ominous. He took a tentative step back, only to realise there was very much a table there (17th century, once owned by Grindelwald), and stumbled. Luck had never really been on his side, not unless you counted that particular time he had ingested an entire bottle of Felix Felicis and found himself a little bit better off than usual, and in stumbling over the leg of the table, Harry ended up effectively taking both himself and Draco down.

Straight into the coffin.

Which, according to Murphy's Law and numerous other magical laws about things never going the way people wanted them to go, immediately gave a violent shudder, held its ground for a second or two, and immediately crashed to the ground onto its side, the door slamming shut behind them. The entire matter had taken mere moments that felt like slow motion minutes; neither of them even had the time to scream, even if they had wanted to. By the time Draco had caught his breath, his brain had caught up what had happened, and his heart had dislodged itself from where it nestled snugly in his throat, it was too dark to sort out what all had happened. All he knew was that he was very firmly pressed up against a fairly warm body, and trying to move only resulted in a slightly nerve-wracking sense of being about to fall.

"Potter," he started, voice low and dangerous in the small space, "Do you remember what I told you about not breaking my things?"

Harry kept silent for a moment, figuring that it was probably better not to taunt Draco as long as they were close enough for any sort of charm to fatally wound him. Assuming the other man even chose to murder him with magic; Merlin knew they were close enough right then for Draco to be able to just choke him out given a few moments.

Draco, at any rate, seemed to take the silence as invitation to continue his irate rant, "That also went for my person. Granted, I thought you'd have been smarter at this point in life, considering you never fail to show off that precious Auror badge of yours, and-"

There was a shuffle of movement, and Draco cut himself off with a well-placed squeak.

"Potter, _what_ do you think you're doing?"

"I was rather hoping to find a clasp or something."

"You're very much looking in the wrong place."

"I'm also trying to figure out where exactly you are."

"You've done that just fine, now please stop touching me," Draco hissed, his breath hitching slightly. Harry coloured in the darkness, glad it wouldn't much show with the complete lack of light. There was a pinprick down at the bottom, where there was either a hole or some kind of warping in the door. At least they wouldn't die of oxygen deprivation any time soon. He had worried, what with the way Draco was still going on. His hands slid away from the soft fabric of Draco's clearly expensive suit, and he cleared his throat, trying to think of a better topic.

"We won't be stuck in here for that long," Harry tried for reassuring, not sure if it worked. Draco made a noise in the back of his throat. "Someone will find us."

Another of those unhappy noises from the other man. He was starting to think that this little visit wasn't necessarily the best of ideas, even if it had been necessary.

Well. Mostly necessary.

All right, Harry had requested the job specifically.

"Speak for yourself, Potter."

"I'm sure you get customers."

"Of course I get customers," Draco scoffed, making an indignant noise that Harry could have sworn was a snort. "I get plenty of customers. Just not at this time of day."

"What's so different about this time of day? Why's it more special than the other times?"

The roll of Draco's eyes was almost loud in the silence between them. "Because it's almost closing, Potter," the blond sneered. "No one comes this close to closing."

"Oh."

It meant, effectively, that they were screwed until someone noticed they were gone. Draco had lapsed into silence, mouth pursed firmly as he tried not to think about that notion, about the complete lack of people who would realise he was gone until the shop didn't close at its proper time, until he didn't show up at his usual cafe at his usual time. Basically until his carefully organised life was set completely awry because of one little misstep.

For a moment, he was almost glad that he hadn't made the misstep himself; at least with Potter being a clumsy fool, he had not only someone to blame, but someone to keep him company. Even if that company wasn't really what he would have asked for, or expected of his evening. It was, at the very least, different, but Draco wasn't about to concede that he liked different any time soon.

Silence reigned for a while while Draco thought about the sad state of his life, and while Harry thought about the sad state of Draco's life. It really was a bit depressing, they both found themselves thinking, up until the moment Harry offered a sympathetic sort of noise.

"What was _that_?" Draco snapped almost immediately, his face heating up.

"Well, you don't-" Harry started thoughtfully, wondering if he should just shut up now. "You don't really have anyone who'll notice you're gone, do you?"

It was blunt and to the point, and exactly what Draco didn't want to hear. Just as Harry had managed to move earlier and find out where Draco was, roughly, so Draco could do the same: he shifted, one hand coming up in a fist that delivering as much of a blow to Harry's chest as it possibly could within the limited space. Harry's arms, it seemed were pinned to his sides - he had grabbed at Draco's sleeve when he fell, trying to catch his wrist; on the other hand, Draco's arms had come up to brace his fall, and were currently resting none too gently against Harry's chest, currently balled into tight, angry fists.

Harry made a note, in between grunting with the effort of bracing himself against the ineffective punch and trying let again to figure out a way to get them out without blowing them up at the same time, to not piss off the blond. 

He cleared his throat again, shifting and trying to reach his wand. Draco gave another unhappy squeak, and suddenly his hands were fisting themselves in Harry's shirt, all but clinging to him. "Potter," he protested, venom gone from his voice as it lifted a good octave and a half, "Stop moving."

"I'm trying to get my wand."

"Well, don't try to get your wand."

Harry ignored him quite pointedly, shifting again to try to tug the stick from his pocket, where it ought to have been, then paused. "It's not here."

Draco sighed heavily, a sound laced with exasperation and irritation, and let go a little of Harry's shirt, "Do you suppose that could be due to the fact that you dropped it when you grabbed me?"

"I hadn't thought of that."

It was true, he hadn't. Draco wouldn't have even realised it until it was mentioned, until he thought back to that slow motion moment when he had been slammed into the back of the coffin, practically winded. Sure enough, the wand in question was lying just outside the coffin and where it lay on its side, waiting patiently for its owner to retrieve it.

Which meant that the only wand between them was Draco's, still stuck in his pocket. Harry sniffed thoughtfully, and then began to rummage around, fingers searching for the blond's pocket. He gave a decidedly unhappy noise at that, immediately squirming against Harry's hand in such a way that Harry thought he might be hiding something.

"What's your problem, Malfoy?" He asked, frowning even in the dark. His question was met by an irate huff - apparently Draco was trying his damnedest not to kill him, probably because it would throw too much interest on his mediocre little business for his liking - and a hissed response:

"Get your hand away from me, Potter. I'll give you one more warning, and then I'm breaking your fingers."

He didn't really doubt that Draco would follow through with it, even once they got out of the coffin, but neither did it stop him too terribly from eventually finding the end of the wand, his fingertips brushing against far too much that wasn't Draco's wand - not that he was about to stop to ask - and pulling it out. Sadly, the number of unfortunate events that evening seemed only to increase when Harry declared with a cheerful "Aha!" that he had the wand; their weight within the coffin shifted, and it toppled right over with a brief moment of weightlessness.

Draco gasped as the wind was knocked clean out of him by one rather bulky Auror landing on him without much warning at all. His hands were, at the very least, finally able to move a bit more, even if they were still fairly trapped above his waist. It did mean that he would be able to properly hit Harry if he did so feel the desire to, and he most certainly did.

"Stop _moving_ , for fuck's sake," he finally croaked out once his lungs had re-inflated again. He turned his head, coughing a little to help fix the problem, and for a moment, Harry felt legitimately bad. He turned Draco's wand between his fingers thoughtfully, his other hand moving to brace his weight above Draco, rather than on him; the blond seemed grateful, not that he would say as much, and Harry cleared his throat.

There was a lengthy pause between them both, silence reigning in the coffin as they got more comfortable in the space, no longer quite panicking the way they were before. Harry, honestly, wasn't entirely certain he wanted to light it up, even now that he had Draco's wand; he was almost positive that Draco would spend the entire time glowering at him.

"You know-"

"Potter, that had better be my wand," Draco stated, voice wavering slightly as he interrupted. For a moment, Harry hadn't the slightest what he was talking about. Belatedly, it occurred to him that between all this close proximity and likely the noises Draco had just been making trying to catch his breath weren't really that good for him when he couldn't see anything.

" _Lumos_ ," Harry responded instead, the wand lighting up somewhere near Draco's shoulder. He cleared his throat then, knowing full well the blond could now see the flush on his cheeks, "Afraid not, Malfoy."

For the time being, he also had no idea what he had been about to say; it didn't seem to matter though, considering the look Draco was giving him. Conversation probably wasn't going to happen for a very long while at this point.

The blond cleared his throat, cheeks flushing slightly in the too-bright glow of his wand. Still, he managed somehow to look appropriately annoyed at the same time, effectively silencing Harry until he was asked to speak again.

"Do you eat nothing but biscuits, Potter?" Draco snapped, voice holding but a thin tendril of its usual venom. He sounded annoyed certainly, but perhaps more due to embarrassment and claustrophobia than anything else. "I swear, you're practically crushing me like this. Has anyone ever pointed out to you how fucking heavy you are?"

"It's muscle," he replied quietly, furrowing his brow as he stared down at the other man, shifting his weight a little to try to make it more bearable. Or at least so Draco wouldn't complain quite so much.

"Of course it is."

"Don't worry, Ron'll be here soon," Harry stated plainly, glancing over his shoulder like it would help. Like he could somehow see through the coffin's lid to the door. He wasn't even sure that he'd be able to hear the other man come in when he did, or if everything was silenced, never to be heard again. "Then you can go back to…whatever it is you do in your free time."

"It's called 'running a business', Potter. I imagine you wouldn't know much about that, though."

"I'm an Auror, Malfoy."

"I don't see how that has anything to do with this," Draco drawled, one brow lifting sceptically. Harry responded with a simple roll of his eyes, making the gesture much more exaggerated than it needed to be.

"It means I know more than you think."

"I doubt that."

"Wh-" Harry tried, then blew out a slow exhale of a sigh, staring up at Draco with the sort of unwavering stare he'd always been good for in their youth. "I'm not going to argue with you, Malfoy. It's a waste of time."

Draco's lip curled upwards, "All we have is time. We're trapped in a bloody coffin. Trapped, in this instance, can be defined as 'stuck without any chance of immediate escape', in case you weren't privy to that knowledge."

"I wa-"

"Which means that we have all the time in the world until Weasley gets here," he continued without paying Harry any heed, mouth finally pursing into a nervous line. And it was then that Harry realised Draco was probably terrified. At least, if what he'd been like in the past was anything to go off; he couldn't picture someone changing drastically enough to suddenly become courageous. And let's face it: courageous was never something that described Draco terribly well.

He felt a bit bad thinking that way, like the blond had to be terrified of their situation just on principle, but at least he had a bit of proof. It was staring at him.

" _What_?" Draco finally snapped, deciding that Harry's silence was overly thoughtful, and therefore, couldn't be good.

"Nothing," Harry replied plainly, blinking behind his glasses. There was another pregnant pause as he glanced around for something better to look at, as he tried to drag his attention away from Draco. Like it wasn't much easier said than done, all things considered. They were pressed together, everything making itself prominent and obvious no matter how much they were able to ignore. And above all else-

"You smell good."

"Pardon _me_?" Draco demanded, his pale face flushing with colour.

So Harry dared to elaborate: "Like wood or some kind of fruit, I'm not sure. But it's nice."

Draco's face grew brighter yet, almost in a way that was reminiscent of the way Uncle Vernon's face used to get purple before he verbally exploded. Harry supposed he shouldn't have been terribly surprised by that, even if the comparison brought a curve of amusement to his mouth. He tried to suppress it before the blond decided to kill him for it.

"Stop smelling me, Potter. It's pushing the borders of how creepy any one person should be at any one time."

Another long silence reigned as Draco tried to ignore the fact that Harry Potter thought he smelled good, and Harry tried to ignore the fact that Draco's cologne or whatever it was really was rather pleasant.

"Just out of curiosity, where did you ge-"

"Shut up, Potter."

Harry was starting to think this conversation might have gone a bit better if he hadn't been able to find Draco's wand, if they were left in absolute darkness instead of knowing just how confined they were. He wondered if it was too late to snuff out the lighting charm that glowed so brightly just above his head at this point, or if Draco would only berate him more. And if he minded that as terribly as he thought he should have.

He swallowed thickly, realising belatedly that he had been staring at Draco's mouth for the past few moments, ever since he had done a remarkable job of actually listening to the other man. After a suitable amount of time had passed, he hazarded another comment, "So what have you been up to lately?"

To Draco's credit, he didn't interrupt that time around. He merely levelled an even stare at Harry, raising one brow in a delicate if somewhat disappointed arch. "Working. As I tend to do."

"So no…girlfriend?" Harry asked, bracing himself already for the poor reaction he knew would be coming. He licked his lips, quickly amending with an additional. "Boyfriend?"

"Since when do you care?"

Since their bodies were pressed flush against each other, no matter how much Harry tried to put at least a little bit of distance between them. Since Harry had a fairly substantial erection from the matter that he was struggling to ignore. Or at least force away. Neither of those options was going terribly well, and he opted instead for a weak shrug, "I figured it was a safe enough topic of conversation."

"Of course you would," Draco rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time. Harry was starting to worry he might strain something if he kept that up. "Well, what about you? Do _you_ have a girlfriend?"

Somehow, the question came out as though Draco believed the likelihood of that was fairly slim. Harry flushed this time, embarrassment colouring his cheeks, "No. Not enough time."

"Of course not."

"What's that mean?"

"It means that you're the type to always put your job ahead of everything else."

"What's that make you, then?"

"Excuse me?" The blond asked, mouth curving again into its usual sneer at the insinuation.

"Well, you're fairly invested in this place, aren't you?" Harry asked slowly, frowning a little.

There was another bout of silence, as Draco seethed. Actually seethed, like he was trying to figure out if he knew a spell that would kill Harry where he was. Finally, he forced out a reply through gritted teeth, managing to sound surprisingly calm all the while, "It means I'm not that driven to find someone I have to spend my money on, or shower in affection. My absolute apologies for that, Potter."

Never mind that Harry had known him for more than enough time to have realised that most of Draco's snapping came from deep-seated psychological issues stemming from his childhood and family that would probably never be resolved without years of therapy. Or so Hermione had suggested once upon a time over a particularly awkward dinner. At any rate, it had stuck with him as reason enough not to take much of what Draco said that seriously. Or at least with a very large grain of salt.

"Maybe you ought to wear that cologne more often. I don't think you'd have many problems if you did," Harry offered casually.

"Would you let the bloody cologne go? I make it, all right? Now shut up about it."

If they'd been standing up, and it was at all plausible in the space they occupied, Harry would have lifted his hands in surrender. As it was, he settled for a nod. And with that, they were left with nothing more to discuss on the topic. He supposed that it hadn't gone as badly as he had expected: Draco hadn't hit him, though Harry wasn't sure he even could, and he figured he would probably be able to leave with his general self still intact.

"And think of something else, Potter. I'm tired of dealing with your sexual frustration."

Draco's comment had come out of virtually nowhere, the blond now resting his head against the side of the coffin, his eyes closed as if he was attempting to get a little bit of rest while he had been given the opportunity. Colour crept up Harry's cheeks again as he found himself staring intently at the other man, studying the curve of his jaw, the way his mouth was set when it was in a more default position (that was, thankfully, not a sneer).

"And stop staring at me, it's obviously not helping."

Just like that, Harry figured that he was probably caught anyway. Between the staring, and the inexplicable erection, and the fact that Draco really did smell good, he very much doubted that he had any sort of deniability here. So he leaned forward, shifting to broach the limited distance between the pair of them to catch Draco's mouth with his own in a kiss so unplanned it actually landed on the corner of the blond's mouth instead of full on. His hand brushed against Draco's arm, rough fingertips against the smooth fabric of a suit, barely daring to stray past that minor bit of touch.

While he didn't necessarily flinch away, neither did Draco react the way Harry had sort of hoped he would. Granted, Harry wasn't actually sure what he had expected - it wasn't like there would be fireworks or any of that rot, and the pair of them having any sort of supposedly magical moment was practically laughable. Really, the most he was optimistically hoping for was them both ignoring all of this once they got out of it.

And for the longest moment, it seemed as though that was all that was going to happen, too.

Until Draco cleared his throat, lips parting slightly in mild surprise as he gaped at Harry, floundering for words ineffectually before stammering out a hesitant, yet strangely collected "Do that again."

Harry was more than happy to oblige.


End file.
